-Cynthia behind the billboards-

The scene setting has

Columbus Park on Bedford Street,

Wall Street to the left and Marzilli’s Bakery.

Next to the Park on its right is Stinziano street,

Then Whitey’s Esso station.

Next to Whitey’s, three ground-
Standing billboards, Marcucci’s Bakery,
And the Marconi Club.

Behind the Tenement houses and near them,

Clumps of woodland and meadow sit austerely
And the Junkyard rusts in the metal of its occupation.
The Projects are noisily occupied.

The neighborhoods have marked their lines

Of demarcation.

The great Textile Mills foot-
Printing the landscape in granite,
Smoke at their stacks,—

Pour of the city’s sweat and its working mettle.

The Catholic High Schools, the city’s Four Sisters,

Are revolving with their girls,
And from the Dominican Academy,
Cynthia Laranjeiro shows up.

That’s how you make a planet.

Whitey’s drunk.

He stumbles from the Club and falls on the pavement.

His wife is called and she collects him as she’s done before,

Driving him home over the river in a new Mercury.

The sharp grass is more than ankle deep.

The burs of the weed stick fast to my socks.

The lattice of the bases cover our tracks.

But the small landings behind them is all we need.

The Park’s too active for the dugouts.

Whitey’s passed-out across the backseat

Of the Monterey heading westward toward Somerset.

The bells of the Church from beyond left field
Toll to alert the faithful,

And Cynthia Laranjeiro, bright from the Dominican,

Is carefully folding her sweater on the landing
Behind the billboards.

                                

                                      Quequechan, 1958


                                      City, 2011